Starting Out

Starting Out (1957) was Zhan Jianjun’s graduation work for Konstantin Maksimov’s oil painting course. The work depicts young people who have just arrived in the Great Northern Wasteland in northeastern China to prepare wilderness for cultivation. They did not flinch in the face of the adverse natural environment and harsh living conditions in the Great Northern Wasteland.

Zhan Jianjun was deeply moved by the enterprising spirit of these wasteland cultivation teams, so he went to the Beijing Youth Wasteland Reclamation Base. He worked, ate, and lived with them, searching for source material for his work. These young people believed they were making history by laboring to develop this wasteland, thereby reflecting their youthful heroism and romanticism. After the painting was completed, it was shown at the “World Youth Gathering” International Art Exhibition, where it won the bronze medal. This was the first Chinese oil painting to win an international award after the founding of the People’s Republic.